Ted Cruz

The attempted political take-down of Judge Roy Moore because of highly specious allegations of sexual impropriety has drawn a line in the sand for the Republican Party. Prominent Republicans are deciding whether they will stand with Moore, or push for Democratic victory in Alabama. Members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) are standing strong behind the judge. “You can’t unring a bell,” HFC chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said after being asked about his support of Moore in lieu of the allegations. “At this point, it’s up to Alabama to figure out — Washington D.C.’s not going to decide that.…
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President Donald Trump has worked with GOP establishment leaders, more commonly referred to as the swamp, on healthcare reform repeatedly to no avail. The latest attempts to bailout Obamacare have been universally reviled, drawing ire from conservatives, moderates, and liberal Democrats. One of the primary conservatives standing in opposition to Obamacare bailout legislation is Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) led the way against bailing out Obamacare with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) right behind him. Lee has now followed suit by offering a complete dismissal of any bipartisan agreements to bail out Obamacare. One of Lee’s senior aides…
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President Donald Trump has nominated Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett to the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Willett is known as a champion of restraining bureaucracy and interpreting regulations in a limited way. In 2015, he was described by Reason‘s Damon Root as producing “the most libertarian legal opinion ever written” during a case regarding whether eyebrow threaders ought to be required to hold licenses in order to remove eyebrow hairs with cotton threads.
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Republicans currently are mounting a last minute effort to ram through any legislation attacking the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but it isn’t going so well. Moderates and constitutional conservatives are both souring on the legislation, and its chances of passage have never looked worse. As is the story with previous attempts, moderates are concerned it goes too far and conservatives feel it hasn’t gone far enough toward repealing Obamacare. The big tent is not helping the GOP make America great again. Republicans have little room for loss and have already lost too much. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and…
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has laid out his precondition for negotiation on the Graham-Cassidy health care reform bill in a Sunday interview with the Washington Post. The Senator has declared he will consider backing the bill if the block grants given to the states by it were substantially lowered. “Would I talk to them if they said they wanted to make the block grants half as much? I might,” Paul said. “Nobody has really offered me that, to say, ‘Well, we could spend less’. But we’re going to have a $700 billion deficit, and this is an entitlement program.” Paul acknowledged…
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U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called for keeping of the government out of the bedrooms of consenting adults in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. Following recent controversy surrounding an explicit video being ‘liked’ by Cruz’s official Twitter account, CNN’s Dana Bash asked the Senator whether he thought that it was ironic, given that he had defended a ban on the sale of sex toys in Texas as the state’s Solicitor General. Cruz responded by downplaying it, accusing the mainstream media of running stories that are “totally false”. He went on to explain that he was merely doing his job…
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) met President Donald Trump today, according to recent tweets by the Senator. “Headed to meet with [Donald Trump] this afternoon. The bill is currently not real repeal and needs major improvement. I’ll discuss w/ him how to fix bill & get more to a YES on real repeal, things I’ve tried to tell Senate leaders with no result so far,” Paul said. A White House official also confirmed the meeting to Roll Call. After the meeting, Paul said the following on Twitter: “Just came from WH. [Donald Trump] is open to making bill better. Is Senate…
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A conservative bloc of Senators is taking a stand to save the Republican health care legislation from becoming another big government boondoggle. While President Trump and Senate GOP leaders debate about how many mandates and giveaways they will put in the new legislation, Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Mike Lee (R-UT) have other plans. The four men released a joint statement on Thursday saying, “Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to…
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) narrowly avoided tragedy this week after a gunman shot up a congressional baseball practice, leaving a colleague in critical condition and wounding several others. This tragedy has not stopped Paul from doing his job, and warning the American public about devastating changes to the healthcare bill. “I think we shouldn’t have new entitlements that will go on forever in a Republican plan to fix healthcare,” Paul said to reporters today. “We can’t pay for what we already have: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.” A revised version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) passed the House…
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After the House failed to pass a clean repeal of Obamacare, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) are leading the charge for the GOP-dominated Senate to use all of the tools at their disposal to actually end Obamacare rather than replace it with new taxes, regulations and mandates. Politco has reported that Paul and Cruz are ready to throw decorum and long-standing established Senate rules out the window in order to fully repeal Obamacare. “The firebrands want to overturn long-standing precedent for what can be done under reconciliation, the fast-track budget process the GOP is using to…
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On Thursday, several House Freedom Caucus members introduced the El Chapo Act, the House companion bill to Sen. Ted Cruz’s proposal to fund Trump’s border wall without the use of taxpayer dollars. The El Chapo Act was introduced by Rep. Mo Brooks and cosponsored by Congressmen Tom Garrett, Steve King, and Louie Gohmert – all members of the House Freedom Caucus. Rep. Kevin Brady, who is not a member of the House Freedom Caucus, also cosponsored the bill. The introduction of the El Chapo Act in the House comes in the midst of debate in Congress about whether to fund the construction of…
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has condemned progressive figures within the White House who have been agitating against the fiscally conservative Freedom Caucus. In a Tuesday panel covered by the Texas Tribune, Cruz defended the Freedom Caucus, stating, “I will say those voices in the White House that are trying to get the White House to unload on conservatives, to unload on the Freedom Caucus, are doing the bidding of the left, of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, and profoundly damaging our prospects of success.” When a reporter asked him to elaborate on who specifically he was referring to, Cruz said, “whoever is encouraging the White House to…
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There exists no dearth of outrage on the Left toward the perceived hypocrisy of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party at large. Mr. Trump, they remind us, was elected due to a number of campaign promises, not least of them was the pledge to “drain the swamp”, a not-so-thinly-veiled allusion to the pervasive influence of lobbyists and career politicians infesting the halls of power in Washington, D.C. Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees, particularly Steve Mnuchin and Betsy DeVos, are stark examples in the minds of leftists that our president has broken his word. The Left is correct, from time to…
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For students of political strategy, the 2016 presidential race was a remarkable and informative election. This is especially true for grassroots libertarians who want to learn how to build an electoral coalition capable of winning national elections. It shows why libertarian populism must be the way forward for activists interested in advancing the liberty movement. Donald Trump – or should I say President Trump – accomplished something incredible: he methodically took down sixteen of the Republican Party’s best candidates in the primaries and then annihilated Hillary Clinton in an electoral landslide, holding on to traditional red states while winning states…
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When NPR hit me up earlier today asking about Cruz’s endorsement of Trump, I was asked to give an opinion before I even knew for certain it was happening. I was hoping that Ted would hold out, and give #NeverTrump the public face it needed to continue to effectively project between now and November. Needless to say, I was disappointed. As someone who supported Ted through a number of significant policy disagreements – though I did call him out on them – this disappointment is more personal. When people have bled with you the way we have with Ted, you…
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I have noticed a troubling trend amongst liberty conservatives that is growing lately. Instead of forging alliances with the anti-establishment Republican grassroots, they are pouting, whining, doing the bidding of the Bill Kristol’s of the world, abandoning ship, taking their ball and going home. They are proving all the worst stereotypes about the liberty minded: that we are marginal, petty, flaky, unreliable, melodramatic and undeserving to enjoy the blessings of freedom. Although events in the last year have killed morale and bruised many of our egos, there is a silver lining. The Trump phenomenon has harmed our enemies more than…
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I am not so sure that the Republican Party is the “Trump Party.” Frankly, I hope that you are right, and that I am wrong, and that the GOP really has adopted the economic and political worldview identified as “America First.” Nevertheless, apart from Trump, a handful of GOP Senators (i.e. Alabama Senator Sessions), and a handful of GOP Congressmen, the vast majority of GOP elected officials have not deviated too far from the Ronald Reagan agenda. It is a mistake to think that the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives reflects an “America First” agenda. Yes, these Tea…
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This was supposed to be our big year, but it all went awry. Liberty conservatives had two strong horses in the race: Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. It was more conceivable than ever before that one of those men could win the GOP nomination for President, but they were upstaged by a reality TV blowhard instead. Every liberty-minded conservative should be asking themselves the following simple question: How did we allow this to happen? Arrogance and haughtiness is not going to make the situation any better. Brushing it off and making rationalizations will only ensure that more crushing defeats are…
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Late in the autumn of 1943, German fighter general Adolf Galland headed to the opulent estate of Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall and Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Göring. Galland, a decorated combat ace, had seen extensive action on the western front, and by this point in the war, he could see that the odds were turning against the Third Reich, as British and American bombers made regular raids deep into fortress Europe, escorted by new, long-range allied fighters that had started to thin his distinguished ranks. Galland’s mission on this night was to convince Göring that Germany must re-tool their air force for a…
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On the night of the first ever nationally televised Libertarian Party presidential debate, myself and a small group of fellow writers, editors, and activists were invited by Libertarian Party candidate Austin Petersen to an after party of sorts in downtown New York City. It was history in the making – for the first time, national news had covered a debate between candidates seeking a nomination for this party, which was not one of the two viable political parties in the Republicans and Democrats (though if the state of those factions as of 2016 counts as “viable” today, I’m not sure…
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Yesterday, the Republican Party gasped its final breath as Ted Cruz, the candidate I named in my last article as the only remaining viable option in the party, dropped out of the 2016 race for the GOP nomination. Rand Paul supporters had for months been disparaging this man’s campaign for no other tangible reason other than the fact that he wasn’t Rand Paul. I criticized this idle purism at the time, and I implicate it now as the cause for Cruz’s narrow-but-meaningful losses in votes and delegates that ultimately left Trump just enough in the lead to count Cruz’s campaign…
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The results are in – Ted Cruz is now the only remaining candidate in the 2016 Republican primary poised to stop Donald Trump from nabbing the GOP nomination. I cannot say I am as thrilled by this news as the diehard Cruz fans must be (as I do not count myself among their ranks for reasons I will explain later), but I still find solace in the thought that Trump still has a worthy usurper – and he isn’t half bad. Now that seem like light praise, but I am a believer in incremental change being a serious part of…
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America faces a serious choice in 2016. The question is a simple one. Do we continue or expand upon the policies of Barack Obama, or do we make a decisive choice to step away from the abyss and back into the light of freedom and justice by renewing the promise of a new American century? From the beginnings of his insurgent, grassroots campaign for Senate in 2011, I have always supported Ted Cruz, and knew that he would be the strongest, boldest voice for a Conservative renewal of America. His understanding of and dedication to the Constitution far exceed that…
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Idaho Representative and Freedom Caucus leader Raul Labrador has endorsed Senator Ted Cruz for President, National Review reported yesterday. Labrador joins fellow Freedom Caucus members Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who previously indicated support for the Senator from Texas. Labrador, long viewed as an ally of the Liberty Movement, earned support from liberty icon Rep. Justin Amash for house speaker in 2013 and until recently served as Western State Chair for Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign. Cruz, the only candidate to contest Paul for the liberty vote over the course of the 2016 cycle, has drawn strong…
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Iowa was the final act for a number of presidential candidates, including liberty candidate Sen. Rand Paul – but the reason Paul dropped might come as a shock to many. Though the Rand campaign made many overtures to his father’s base in the final months, Rand Paul did not carry the Iowa libertarian vote. Among the chief victims of the dramatic Ted Cruz win Monday night was the “libertarians won’t vote for Cruz” narrative pedaled for the last year by the Rand Paul campaign. The caucus results have been sliced and diced a hundred ways, and with Sen. Rand Paul’s…
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Much of the libertarian interest in next week’s Iowa Caucuses is focused on Rand Paul – and rightfully so. Since his apparent decision to drop the middle-of-the-road rhetoric and go full libertarian early this year in the face of declining money and support, many of his father’s sidelined activists have taken renewed interest in his campaign. Rand’s numbers in Iowa have seen a slight uptick, and his campaign has released some impressive organizational numbers. Still, Rand is a longshot to pull off a win in a state where the competing candidacies of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have reshaped the…
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As the 2016 GOP Primaries come into view, less than 60 days until the Iowa Caucuses, one candidate has crafted an image of being the most consistent conservative candidate in the field. It would certainly be hard to find a candidate who is more in touch with the “talk radio” wing of the party than Ted Cruz, and he has tried hard to stake out a position as a conservative truth teller and man of principle in this primary. Despite his background in the Bush administration, he has had some success with this strategy. That being said, libertarians and conservatives…
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As we approach tonight’s Republican debate, sure to be a spectacle similar to the last three awkward attempts to manage the political equivalent of a starting football lineup, it’s worth mentioning that debates don’t have to be this way. Late last week Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal challenged Senator Ted Cruz to debate Obamacare mano y mano in a response to the latter’s assertion that he would debate “anyone, anywhere”. Though the move was a clear attempt by Jindal to lash his sinking dinghy to the surging Cruz ship, he served the ball directly into Cruz’s court in such a way…
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Rand Paul is without doubt my first choice for the presidency. As the most libertarian member of the United States Senate, and the son of Ron Paul, Rand is strongly deserving of our support and I wholeheartedly endorse him for President of the United States. However, should he be unsuccessful in his presidential campaign and choose to leave the race at any time in the next few months, we should keep our options open, for there is clearly another candidate in the race with strong liberty credentials. 1. Ted Cruz is one of the most fiscally conservative members of the…
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Ted Cruz has been trying to market himself as an acceptable alternative to Rand Paul for liberty minded voters who are looking for a champion in the 2016 election. Recently the publishing of an info graphic by former Liberty Iowa Executive Director Adil Khan and myself brought some very important questions to light regarding Ted Cruz’s foreign policy inner circle. Liberty voters should be seriously concerned by Cruz’s advisory team, as it threatens to be the most war like advisory team since the George W Bush defense department. This cast of characters should truly horrify any person who cares about…
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It turns out the death of the Liberty Movement has been greatly exaggerated. At the first sign of some sputtering from the presidential campaign of “libertarian-ish” Sen. Rand Paul, critics and pundits gleefully took to the web to declare the so-called “libertarian moment” over. But those seeking evidence of the continued relevance of America’s youngest and most vibrant political faction may just be looking in all the wrong places. Of course one shortfall in the arithmetic of those waiting to dance on the grave of libertarianism is that it attempts to judge the fate of a movement by the electoral…
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Last week I had the chance to interview Senator Ted Cruz backstage after his “Believe Again” event at Drake University in Des Moines. Considering Cruz’s reputation as an avid gamer, I decided to spice things up by challenging him to a chess match during the interview – doing my best to keep the former Princeton debate champ in check, while also hitting him with questions ranging from campaign strategy to comic book wars. It turns out that when he’s not haunting the nightmares of Capitol Hill Democrats, the conservative firebrand enjoys swimming, science fiction, and the irreverent political satire of “Team…
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The Far Left and the Far Right finally have something to agree on: opposition to the package of legislative endeavors leading up to what has been dubbed “Obamatrade”. The issue has given rise to the most bizarre coalitions, with Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee joining Harry Reid and Elizabeth Warren in opposing the deal, and Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Rod Blum siding with President Obama and John Boehner to support it. Broad criticisms have been matched against vague praise, and nobody really seems to know what’s going on. Meanwhile, social media has gone become a political Chernobyl –…
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One of the major issues that has caused a divide of late in the Republican presidential field is the granting of fast track authority to the Obama administration to negotiate the Trans Pacific Partnership. Earlier tonight, Senator Rand Paul came out against granting Obama fast track authority. Paul told WMUR.com that “the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement ‘is being held under lock and key’ by the Obama administration ‘because they’re afraid that if the public knows what we are going to vote on, that somehow that would destroy the republic.'” This is a move that builds on Paul’s long record of…
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The other night as my wife Kelsey and I were getting ready for bed, we were talking about the 2016 presidential race and discussing how things would shape up for the first-in-the-nation caucus state – our home state – of Iowa. We had both heard that Ted Cruz was set to announce his candidacy at midnight, and were keeping a finger on the pulse of the reaction within our liberty-heavy political circles. My wife’s phone buzzed, and then I heard her groan. Another of our friends had asked her who we would be supporting for president in the state where…
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Nobody thought that former US Representative Ron Paul would show up in Iowa this week to stump with his son, Kentucky Senator and likely 2016 presidential candidate Rand Paul; but when Rand took the stage to deliver the keynote at an “Audit the Fed” rally hosted by Liberty Iowa, there was a whole lot of Ron in the room. Ron Paul shirts, Ron Paul hats, and Ron Paul stickers adorned many of the roughly 120 people that gathered in Des Moines to hear the younger Paul speak. Even the speech itself sounded a lot more like the fiery Texas Congressman…
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Nearly two weeks ago, just prior to his appearance at Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz carved out some time to meet with leading liberty activists from around Iowa. The low-key meeting, held in Des Moines, was many activists’ first time to meet the libertarian-leaning Tea Party firebrand. It was also Cruz’s first time fielding questions from a crowd comprised almost exclusively of members of the thriving Iowa Liberty Movement. Cruz opened with high praise for former Rep. Ron Paul’s rapidly-maturing political army. “The power, the energy of the Liberty Movement is inspirational,” said Cruz. “I think…
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Tea Party champion and conservative firebrand Ted Cruz may be ready to embrace his libertarian side – and he may need to, if he hopes to find a path from Iowa to the White House. As it turns out, the death of the Liberty Movement in Iowa may have been greatly exaggerated. While an establishment resurgence in 2014 spearheaded by Governor Terry Branstad succeeded in purging the Ron Paul element from the leadership of the Republican Party of Iowa, members of the state’s robust and often-boisterous Liberty Movement are turning their attention to greater things – namely, the 2016 presidential…
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Torture. Just hearing that word is enough to give one pause. It’s a bit of a superlative for pain – a word reserved for those times when “hurt”, “suffering,” and “agony” just don’t cover it. The word carries with it images of gory slasher films and whispered stories from Soviet gulags. It’s a vestige of darker times, undeserving of any place in the greatest nation in the history of the world. It’s something that is at least as universally-condemned as child molestation and cold-blooded murder. Or was, until a few weeks ago. With the release of classified CIA documents detailing…
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Dear Oatmeal, As I was scrolling through my social media news feed yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice a letter you wrote to Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Your letter, in response to Mr. Cruz referring to Net Neutrality as “Obamacare for the Internet”, portended to explain to the Senator just how Net Neutrality works. I am not Ted Cruz, but I do happen to write for a couple of reputable online publications and put a considerable amount of thought into current events and policy issues. As I read your letter, two concerns formed in my mind: 1) I’m not sure you’ve really thought through the ramifications of the…
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The Middle East is in flames again, and for once, Liberty people seem unsure what to think about it. For years our only rallying cry was “no more nation-building – bring the troops home!” And for a while, that was enough. Our foreign policy ideals were so diametrically opposed to those in play for the last few administrations, we didn’t need to nail down all the details of our ideology. Mere assertion sufficed. But the situation in Iraq has brought the Liberty Movement to a crossroads. On one side, Ron Paul’s steady non-interventionism is what first drew many people to…
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A funny thing happened to Senator Ted Cruz on his way to an “In Defense of Christians” event, he turned it into a rally for Israel and an attack on Christians who disagree with his narrow views. When a hit piece on the conference alleged that one of the Lebanese Patriarchs had worked with Hezbollah against ISIS, according to Reinvented Daddy, the senator decided to deploy his “hate-seeking Cruz missiles” and ditch the group in order to score points with the Israeli lobby. First of all he showed his Philistine ways by confusing the purpose of the event and who…
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